Megan Burns, the founder and managing director of Operations Strategy Consulting, LLC in Pittsburgh, lead the sessions on Saturdays in Eberly 211/218. The final session was held Saturday, April 9, 2011.

The training was intended to prepare students for the job market by helping them earn a certification in Six Sigma, a system that businesses use to attain near-perfect processes, said Jamie Fisher, a senior Management major, who coordinated the program for ECOBIT students through PGN.

Fisher chose to coordinate the Six Sigma training course for the students because certification is increasingly becoming mandatory in certain industries, she said.

“It instills you with the knowledge to perform tasks in the most efficient way possible, which, in the end, makes the company more profitable,” she said. “Many of the jobs I have been looking at require it.”

Similar to martial arts practitioners, Six Sigma trainees can earn a range of certifications, or “belts,” including green, black, and master black belts, and the highest certification, “Champion,” according to Six Sigma online. Burns is a Six Sigma-certified master black belt, the second-highest certification level in the program, which is usually achieved only by instructors, Fisher said.

Bill Smith of Motorola created the program in 1986 to improve product quality for businesses. “Six Sigma” refers to a statistics field called “process capability,” according to the website.